


Mercy

by Kalashnikorn



Series: Anti-Seed [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4980652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalashnikorn/pseuds/Kalashnikorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kalashnikov makes his first kill. From the perspective of a certain Bullet Farm history woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mercy

I didn’t give birth to the Bullet Farmer. I gave birth to Alexander Kalashnikov.

But I was the first to put a gun in his hands. Just a .22, nothing more. Sweet eyes lit up as he stroked the cold metal barrel and felt the trusty wooden stock against his hands. He slung it over his shoulder as he toddled alongside me, trudging over rocks and through streams.

We stopped to meet the tadpoles. A doe and fawn crossed our path.

There were no trails to speak of, we simply hiked the dying woods until we hit the tall brush; then, I took the gun and carried him on my hip. Even to this day, I can still feel his warmth and weight upon my bony hip as he eyed thorns and prodding branches, knowing he was safe in my arms. And though I grew weary, I always held him near to my heart, never wavering.

A buzzard circled to the north. We kept on in that direction.           

When we reached our property’s edge, he wanted nothing to do with walking again. The horizon stretched to infinity, split only by the wire fence immediately before us. He thought better of laying his tiny fingers on the rusty metal, opting instead to peer through the gaps at what lied beyond. His eyes focused on some unseen point, while I made my way over to the scavenger’s quarry.

Its chest still trembled. Good.

“Baby boy, take a look at this.” Ensnared in the twisted metal was a rabbit, either resigned to its fate or too spent to thrash. The fur around its trapped ankle was matted with blood, as was the dried grass that formed its deathbed. The wire, in concert with its struggling, sheared its flesh clean to the bone. As soon as I set my child down, he reached to pet it; I stopped him short. The rabbit mustered a burst of screaming and futile convulsing.

His normally-confident voice faltered as he mumbled something about “helping it.” 

I handed him the gun.

Standing in silence, his scrunched eyebrows gave way to an injured look of betrayal. How deep a child’s eyes can cut. He cast his gaze to the ground and shook his head in refusal. All I remember was that wavy mop of hair pressed to my chest, dampening my shirt with tears. A little fist pounded against my ribs. How long it took to wear him down, I don’t know. Time has dimmed some memories - in my mind, at least.

We stayed until tiny hands no longer shook as they flicked off the safety. Through watery eyes, he took aim and fired.

My baby trembled as I carried him, all the way home. And even though it was the first time we had a proper dinner since his fourth birthday, he barely touched it. Never has he regained his taste for meat.

I fought every urge to apologize. He’d seen the limp carcasses I hauled from the woods. He knew of birth and death, and of the means of survival. Where that rabbit met its fate, those loving, naïve eyes of his saw a chance to be a savior; I saw a boy who’d become a man too paralyzed by his own heart to keep it beating. This is not a world of mercy. This is not a place of honor; no great deed is remembered here. And this is the world into which I had delivered him. This is the world for which I must prepare him. I will stop at _nothing_ to keep him here.

Perhaps Alexander Kalashnikov still lives; I know the Bullet Farmer is alive and well.

 


End file.
